The present invention relates to a client-server system. More particularly, the embodiments of the present invention relate to methods of using certain rules to provide customized information to users in an enterprise portal environment, which is one type of client-server systems.
Computer networks have become ubiquitous in business, industry, and education. Much research has been conducted on ways to better provide information to users more quickly and efficiently. In one approach, a network is configured with one or more user accounts. Each account is uniquely associated with a human network user or host computer. The network also has one or more resources, such as application programs that provide various computing functions that are available to all users. In this approach, a user logs into his or her user account and selects a desired application. This approach does not provide a means of tailoring of the information provided to the user or providing different access rights to the network resources.
Development and wide acceptance of the Internet have enabled network resources, accounts and applications to become available from almost anywhere in the world and at virtually anytime. The Internet is most commonly used in the World Wide Web (“The Web”) environment. The Web uses the hypertext protocols to present information, which greatly simplifies the information retrieval by users.
These developments have enabled networks to serve as a platform for global electronic commerce, as seen by the rise of Yahoo!, EBay and Amazon.com. The Web also enables easy exchange of information between businesses and their customers, suppliers and partners.
Businesses of any significant size now see the Internet and effective use of computers as crucial to their business strategies. This has led to a great demand for business or enterprise applications that are used to better organize, store, and process data. Increasingly, these enterprise applications are being provided in portal environment. One example of the enterprise portal is mySAP.com™ by SAP, AG, a German software company.